Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Treats

We have been doing a lot of Christmas baking! We already showed you the Pretzel Turtles and shared the recipie here.



We also made....

Sugar Cookies

Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ritz Cracker Peanut Butter Cookies

 Toffee

Hot Cocoa Cookies

We have lots of yummy goodies to bring back to Iowa for Christmas!

Thanksgiving in Arkansas

Sorry this post is a little late but here is a Thanksgiving recap. Most people know the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving. A time when families gather for fun and food. When moms burn the turkey and dads nap the afternoon away. This year in Becky's world, it was Packers game day.

This year Becky and I took the wonderful drive to Springdale, Arkansas to visit my parents, sister, niece, and nephews.

As grandpa Mark has aged, the idea of sleeping on an air mattress doesn't appeal to him anymore. That's okay though...this way the grandkids get to go swimming. We went down during half time of the Packers game to watch the kids swim.

The kids have more energy than grandpa Mark. They kept swimming while we watched the second half of the Packers game.

My beautiful Blue Moon turkey. Who would have thought putting two of my favorite things (turkey and beer) together would render such a moist delicious meal.

Carving the turkey

Master chef of the day 

Looking at Black Friday adds and eating dessert. Just writing about it makes me tired.

All the grandkids made their Christmas lists. Times have changed. I need two more jobs in order to get them what they want.

After checking out the ads, some of the family went to downtown Fayetteville. The main square is completely decorated with Christmas lights.

The men by the light up toy soldiers

There was a Christmas light carousel that spun. Pretty sweet!

Mom and her little guy

Have you noticed how Reese got in every picture?

Reese felt left out.

Becky, my mom and I did a little Black Friday shopping at midnight. Most of our time shopping was spent in the checkout line at Target. We all went bowling Friday afternoon.

This is supposed to be a picture of the final score card in which Becky may or may not have knocked down 4 more pins than Lee. No one will ever know...

Pretzel Turtles

My favorite Christmas treat are Pretzel Turtles. They are SO good! I found this recipe in a Rachael Ray magazine a few years ago. Be sure to make these this holiday season...you will love them!

Pretzel Turtles

1 bag of soft caramels
1 bag of pretzels
1 large bar of dark chocolate
2 cups finely chopped almonds

Unwrap the caramel, flatten and stretch it. Wrap the caramel around one end of the pretzel. Make sure the caramel is sealed around the pretzel. 

Melt the dark chocolate bar in a double boiler until smooth. Then you can either dip the caramel end of the pretzel into the chocolate or get chocolate on a spatchula and roll the pretzel in it.

Immediatly following the chocolate, roll the pretzel in the almonds to coat.  

Cover a cookie sheet (or we used a plastic cutting board) in tin foil and place the finished pretzels on it. Then put them into the freezer to set.

 Enjoy! Merry Christmas!

The Nutcracker Ballet

Lee and I went to The Nutcracker ballet this past Saturday at the Winspear Opera House in downtown Dallas. There were some ice sculptures across the street that we went to look at since we were early. They were melting pretty fast since it was in the 60s and raining on and off.

I was expecting the opera house to be old but it was a new, modern, very cool building.

Sorry, there were no pictures allowed during the performance. All the dancers were really great. We felt very big city-ish getting dressed up and going downtown to the ballet :) We had a good time at our first ballet experience.

O Christmas Tree

I love decorating the Christmas tree. It is hard for me to wait until after Thanksgiving to put it up. One month just doesn't seem long enough to have it out. I convinced Lee that since we were going to Arkansas for Thanksgiving we should put it up a little early so it would be waiting for us when we got home. We had another silver and gold tree. I loved it so much from last year..I just made a few additions. Here are some of the million pictures I took of our tree this year :)